September 21 - September 27, 1995

Are Detroit And Big Oil Behind The Recent Bad PR For Battery-Powered Autos?

B y M a r k B r y a n t

Electric Vehicles ARE generally regarded as a quaint idea,
under-powered, without much range and not very practical. However,
new technology and state mandates are putting new and improved
versions on the road, reasonable alternatives to the pollution-belching
internal combustion engine.

Yet a recent study in Science magazine undercut those
claims for environmentally friendly vehicles. The New York
Times reported it under the headline, "Lead-Based Battery
Used in Electric Car May Pose Hazards."

The news ignited protests by defenders of electric vehicle technology--and
good science--who blasted holes in the flawed study. Some proponents
even pointed to dark motives, the status quo feeling threatened
by new ideas.

The May 9 Times article reported a study by researchers
at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, which, to quote the
newspaper, suggests that "emissions from mining, smelting
and recycling the lead needed for a large fleet of electrical
vehicles would pose serious threats to public health."

The study says, "A 1998 electric car is estimated to release
60 times more lead per kilometer of use relative to a comparable
car burning leaded gasoline." And, "Electric Vehicles
will not be in the public interest until they pose no greater
threat to public health and the environment than do alternative
technologies, such as vehicles using low-emissions gasoline."

In the Times, an economist for the American Enterprise
Institute, a conservative think tank, was quoted as saying, "This
could be the kiss of death for electric vehicles."

Critics called it bad science leading to wrong conclusions. More
interestingly, though, some said the study reveals a subtle David-and-Goliath
battle: the makers of Electric Vehicles vs. the oil industry and
auto companies. Just part of a transparent effort by opponents
of electric vehicles to change public opinion.

One of those wading in to do battle is Mary Ann Chapman, president
of EcoElectric Corporation, a Tucson business that is building
and selling electric vehicles. Aside from picking apart the glaring
technical flaws in the study, she and some others make some unsettling
claims.

One is that the study, which got plenty of media attention, was
tainted from the start. One of the research grants came from the
Green Design Consortium of the Carnegie Mellon University Engineering
Design Research Center. From Carnegie Mellon's own description,
the consortium is "open to industrial partners interested
in participating and guiding consortium projects."

Aside from any possible bias from the start, the study is sloppy
and inaccurate, "containing errors that would shame a high
school engineering student," wrote the editor of Current
EVents, the publication of the electric vehicle industry.
Others, published in the August 11 edition of Science,
described it as "absurd," "amazing" and "the
analysis...does not appropriately support its conclusions."

Other rebuttals came from the Union of Concerned Scientists,
the Gas Guzzler Campaign, The Advanced Lead-Battery Consortium
and others, which quickly noted some of the many flaws:

1) The study apparently ignores the 188 million batteries already
in use by conventional vehicles. About 97 percent of those get
recycled

2) The study estimates 10 million electric vehicles on the road
in the next decade. Not a chance. Last year, American car companies
sold 15 million cars and trucks. Even if all states adopted zero-emissions
standards, there's no way that many would be on the road that
soon.

3) The study uses data from a 17-year-old test vehicle as an
example of current technology. "It is rather like comparing
a Model T Ford with a Chevrolet Corvette," writes David Goldstein,
president of Program Development Associates, an electric vehicle
and battery consulting firm in Maryland.

Cleaner, more efficient batteries will soon replace lead-acid
batteries. The bigger the market, the bigger the incentive for
improvement. New technology for Electric Vehicles includes nickel-metal
hydride, lithium polymer and composite flywheels.

4) The lead emissions estimates in the study are at least three
times too high.

5) The report bases some of its findings on assuming that General
Motors' electric vehicle, the Impact, has a battery pack weighing
3,032 pounds and the car's range is 50 miles. Actually, the whole
car weighs less than that, the batteries weigh 1,150 pounds, with
a range of 75 to 90 miles.

6) The study ignores the emissions of all the nasty pollutants
that would be displaced by electric vehicles.

Enough people wrote to Science that the study's authors
wrote in a rebuttal that reaction "has been astonishing in
terms of the level of attention, venom, and desire to defend EVs."

For Chapman, the study is just an early salvo in what she expects
to be a much larger battle over the fate of vehicles that could
supplant the need for gasoline. The bigger picture, she believes,
is one that has the oil industry and car companies pushing out
alternate-fuel vehicles.

For starters, American Petroleum Institute has a budget of $10
million to discredit alternative fuels, particularly electric
vehicles, she says.

This should come as no big surprise. Chapman notes: "Both
the oil industry and the major automakers clearly have a long
history of working together to achieve mutual objectives. In the
1920s, major oil and automotive interests killed electric trolleys
in Los Angeles and other metropolitan areas by buying them and
shutting down, in order to make the country dependent on individual
transportation and petroleum. They succeeded. This is documented,
unquestionable history."

Mandates in California, New York and Massachusetts call for a
rising fraction of cars sold to be zero-emission vehicles. This
has already ignited opposition.

Oil companies argue that the nascent electric-vehicle industry,
and domestic fuels such as natural gas and ethanol, should not
be subsidized, that it should be a level playing field.

Yet the oil industry gets oodles of tax breaks and other benefits.
A Domestic Fuels Alliance study in March said the oil industry
got more than $123 billion in preferential tax benefits from 1919
to 1973. In 1990, the Congressional Budget Office put subsidies
at $28 million annually.

The Domestic Fuels Alliance states: "The petroleum industry
is financing an aggressive lobbying, litigation, public relations
and advertising campaign aimed at delaying the development and
growth of alternative fuels and alternatively fueled autos. The
motivation is to retain market dominance for conventional gasoline,
and future dominance for reformulated gasoline, now required by
the government for use in American's most heavily air-polluted
cities."

Detroit first argued that electric cars could not be practical.
Now they say they'll cost too much. "The Big Three price
their electric vehicles at $100,000 and assert that by 1998 they
will cost $12,000 to $20,000 more than comparable conventional
cars and trucks," wrote Jessica Mathews, with the Council
on Foreign Relations. She argues their prices are inflated to
discourage sales of the new technology. Other American producers
are selling electric vehicles at much lower prices. And once the
economy of scale kicks in, the cost of owning and operating one
will be comparable to gasoline vehicles, says a study from Tufts
University.

A big "if" remains that Electric Vehicles will succeed.
Or how other fuels will fare. But in a country renowned for innovation
and independence, it would be a shame to see the opportunity quashed
by industries enmeshed in self-interest.

"The real danger," notes Chapman, "is the way
in which major corporations are using their financial might to
unduly limit our transportation options and efforts to clean up
the environment and establish U.S. energy independence."